Fantails (21 page)

“All ready for our son.”

“Our daughter won’t fare half as well. Jane inherited all my dolls, and any that remain are in a poor way now.” She was kneeling by the soldiers; Sherry pulled her to her feet and held her with her face against his shoulder and his cheek against her hair, both of them looking out into the bright morning. ‘They’ll have a good view, anyhow!” he said. “How many shall we have?”

“Two boys, two girls, then one of each,” said Logie recklessly. “Not more than a year or eighteen months between them. What have you got to say to that?”

“I’d no idea that you were making plans on such a lavish scale. But now I come to think of it, a family’s just about the only thing that’s not on points. Are any of them going to be twins?”

“Not unless you’re specially keen on twins. More fun to spread them out.”

“Well, that’s one way of looking at it! ... Vee would be shattered if she knew that she was going to be a grandmother six times over. By the way, we’d better look in on her before we go.”

“Doesn’t she hate to be disturbed?”

“Not as a rule. She’s bored stiff by herself, no matter how ill she feels. Logie, I’ve got to go on being first with you, d’you hear, even if we have a dozen children?”

His urgency surprised her. “Darling, of course! One doesn’t love a baby in the same way as a husband. And love isn’t rationed, any more than families—it’s limitless.”

Against her hair he muttered, “Darling, you do think of the sweetest things to say ...” They clung together for an ardent moment, then left the quiet sunny room in which they had as yet no place. Logie, giving it a backward glance, had a strange, not unhappy feeling that as soon as the door closed behind them ghosts of children long since dead and gone would throng there, whispering and eager, to await the coming of the generation of to-morrow...

Sherry knocked cautiously on his mother’s door. Plaintively she called them to come in. They found her lying propped on huge square pillows among linen of palest shell pink, in her long room that was a symphony in silver greys and muted blues and pinks and lilacs. She greeted them, “Oh, darlings—isn’t this just
too
dreary! I do so adore racing—not that I ever watch the horses, but it’s such a chance to meet one’s friends, and I was pining to give my new tweeds an outing. Never mind: to-morrow is another day, as they say in Spain, or is it Scotland? Have a good time and mind you bring back lots of news to cheer me up! Logie, I rely on you to tell me every detail of what everyone is wearing. Sherry’ll tell you who they all are.”

Laughing, Logie promised she would do her best. They were going and had reached the door when Vee called Sherry back. “Come close to me—it makes my head worse to talk loudly.” Obediently he went close to the bed. Logie stood waiting for him by the door. She did not realise that Vee, blinded by cold wet pads of cotton wool laid on her eyes, believed her gone, while Sherry, his back now towards the door, also thought that she had gone to get ready for the races.

Vee told him, “Marjorie Darringfield rang up a little while ago to say the Hinterzhagens came back last night. She went to meet friends on the six-nineteen and they were on it.”

After the briefest of pauses Sherry said shortly, “Well? So what?”

“You know how Zara never can bear to miss anything. They’re sure to be at Harrawick to-day. Forewarned is forearmed—one can make up one’s mind what line to take.”

Logie, glancing at her watch, went quietly away, for it was time that she was getting ready if they were to set out at eleven, as they had planned. As she changed her shoes she wondered idly where she had heard Zara’s name before, and then remembered on her first evening here she had overheard Lady Darringfield and Elizabeth Sawdon talking of her as though she were connected with some piece of local gossip or perhaps a scandal. She must ask Sherry ... Then she forgot the mysterious Zara in the absorbing business of adjusting the little hat of turquoise felt, stabbed with a brown quill, that she had bought two days ago in Harrogate to wear with her tweed suit.

The drive to Harrawick lay in lovely country, along lonely valleys where little rushing streams—hereabouts called “becks”—went leaping over the boulders from one pool to another, through stone-built villages, over high moors, then down again to where the little market town of Harrawick lay with the racecourse on its outskirts, surrounded by a plain of fertile agricultural country. When at last they joined the main road from York to Harrawick it was to become one of a stream of cars all heading for the races. Sherry was unusually silent and seemed preoccupied, but when they had parked the car his silence left him and he was in high spirits, greeting friends in all directions, and introducing Logie to so many people in succession that she was bewildered by the number of their unfamiliar names and faces. As good luck would have it, the car that drew alongside theirs held the Sawdons and three friends, so rugs were spread, baskets unpacked, and they joined forces for their picnic lunch. Around them other similar parties gathered to exchange sandwiches and sausage-rolls, hard-boiled eggs and fruit cake, sherry and thermos flasks, and talk and laughter. Everyone was in high good humour. Most of them were people whose lives before the war had run on leisurely and comfortable lines; they were enjoying to-day’s outing all the more keenly since their daily round now consisted for the most part of housework, shopping, gardening, raising pigs and poultry, playing a part in village politics and local government.

After lunch the Sawdons and their friends went off in the direction of the tote; they had a good tip, they said, for the first race. Sherry suggested going to the paddock to inspect the horses, so he and Logie set out together through the long lanes of cars. Logie was thrilled with her first sight of a racecourse, the bookies’ stands, the shouting, jolly crowds, the women in their well-cut tweeds, the keen-faced men with shooting-sticks and field-glasses, the hardbitten ones with bandy legs who leaned upon the rails in loud check jackets watching the parade with knowing eyes, the jockeys’ gay, chequered shirts and bright, peaked caps.

“Isn’t it
fun!”
she exclaimed, but Sherry scarcely answered. Again he seemed preoccupied, glancing about him sharply as though he were in search of someone, scarcely looking at the horses. “How about getting along to the stand?” he said at last. “Can’t say I fancy backing anything in this, do you?”

“No. Let’s go to the stand.”

As they approached the entrance Elizabeth Sawdon came towards them from the other side. Her expression altered when she saw them, as though, thought Logie, she had been anxious about something and was now relieved.

“What did you back?” she asked, joining them, walking on Sherry’s other side. Logie heard her say in a rapid undertone, not waiting for his answer, “Sherry, Zara’s on the stand. At the far end, near the top. I thought I’d tell you.” Then, even as he was answering, “Good! I’d heard that they were back. Over there, d’you say?” Elizabeth slipped away suddenly into the crowd. Logie watched her dodging elbows, diving between arms and shoulders to join her brother half-way up the stand. How very odd of her to join them, then so abruptly leave them!

Sherry stood stock still. Then he looked down at Logie. “Let’s join the Hinterzhagens, shall we, for this race? You follow on—I’ll forge ahead and make way for you.”

The Hinterzhagens? Had she met them? Then, as she followed Sherry through the crowd, Logie remembered. In a moment she would meet the mysterious Zara!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Two people stood together by the railing of the stand and half-way up. One was a man, thickset and swarthy. He had a thick, fleshy nose, full, moist, red lips, small eyes closely set, and black hair, heavily oiled. One plump hand was gesticulated with a large cigar; even Logie’s inexperience recognised the diamond flashing on his little finger as a stone of the first water. His pale-grey Homburg hat, his gleaming shoes, his suit of dark material with a white pinstripe, everything he wore looked new and costly.

His companion was a girl: a girl so lovely, so superbly groomed that Logie, fascinated, had much ado not to stare at her to the point of ill manners. She had the figure of a mannequin, tall and narrow-hipped, with long, slim legs and slender feet. She wore her red-gold hair in a long shining bell, framing the perfect oval of her face. Her skin was pale as ivory. She had regular, clear-cut features and long eyes whose heavy lids were delicately touched with green eye-shadow: strange eyes, they were, grey-green, with the transparency of coloured glass.

And oh, her clothes! The sheer simplicity of their perfection, that depended upon cut and line for its effect, made even the smartest woman standing near her seem a dowdy frump. Her tailored suit was of dull-surfaced heavy silk in a subtle shade of sea-green. With it she wore a black blouse, hand-made and frail as gossamer, gun-metal nylons, black suede shoes and gloves and bag, with jade-and-diamond clasp. She must, thought Logie, be some famous star and the man with her a magnate of the film world.

But now Sherry was heading straight towards them. Logie followed close behind. Surely this exotic creature who looked as though she would be more at home in the Ritz Grill than at a small race meeting, couldn’t be Zara? Surely in a minute he would swerve aside and go up to that fair, curly-headed girl in sturdy tweeds or the pretty red-head with the Gordon Highlander? But no—he had gone right up to the girl in sea-green.

“Hul-
l
o
, Zara! You’re looking grand. Matrimony must agree with you. Or have you been beating her up, Solly? ‘A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,’ y’know!”

So they were husband and wife! How
could
that dazzling girl have married such a very unattractive man! He might, of course, possess a heart of gold and any amount of hidden charm, but from his expression Logie doubted it. She had been wondering of who or what it was that he reminded her; now, as he said, “ ’Lo, Sherry!” she realised that it was an old boar they had seen yesterday at a farm. Those heavy shoulders and small suspicious eyes were just the same; so was the grunting speech.

“Sherry! What a surprise!” Yet somehow Logie sensed that Zara had been well aware of his approach. Her voice was a low, husky drawl. She stared with half-closed eyes at Sherry, while the man’s little eyes shifted warily from Sherry’s face to Logie’s, then back again to remain fixed on Sherry’s tie.

Sherry turned and slid a hand through Logie’s arm, drawing her forward. “I don’t think you’ve either of you met my fiancée, Logie Selkirk?—Darling, here are two more of our neighbours. Mr. and Mrs. Hinterzhagen—just back from their honeymoon.”

Honeymoon! That this man should be Zara’s bridegroom—any woman’s bridegroom—was to Logie utterly repellent, and she loathed the way he eyed her as he said, “Congratulations, old boy! Saw it in
The Times.”

The girl’s air of indifferent boredom did not change, for the faint smile that momentarily curved the corners of her lips did not reach her eyes as in one swift, cold, comprehensive glance she took in every detail of the other girl’s appearance (as though she knew the price of everything I’m wearing and even the colour of my underclothes, thought Logie) then looked away over the heads of the crowd towards the course, murmuring that she “hoped they would be terribly happy.”

Surely, Logie thought, Sherry can’t possibly like these people? The man isn’t in the very least his sort, and though the girl is absolutely lovely, talking to her is like opening the door of a refrigerator. Surely he’ll leave them now, make some excuse about going higher up the stand? But Sherry was opening one of the two shooting-sticks he carried. “Better perch on this, darling. Only mind it doesn’t slip,” he said, then settled himself on the other stick to watch the first race. Zara, it seemed, had backed a horse called Zircon. It ran fourth, after an exciting finish. “Can’t expect everything, you know,” Sherry consoled her cheerfully. “ ‘Lucky in love, unlucky at cards’ probably applies to racing too. That’s why I don’t propose to have a single bet to-day. How about moving along the paddock? Might as well have a look at the runners in the next race.”

Logie’s heart sank, for his manner took it for granted that the Hinterzhagens would come too. They all went down the steps and turned together towards the paddock, Logie walking between the two men, Zara on Sherry’s other side. Mr. Hinterzhagen, who had said that she must call him Solly, since “he was Solly in every bar from Cape Town to New York,” smelt of a blend of alcohol, cigar smoke, and over-scented hair-oil, and took it for granted that he should call her Logie without invitation. He walked too close to her and several times laid his hand on her arm under the pretext of drawing her attention to something or other. She did not want to hurt his feelings, but drew away unostentatiously from his grasp as soon as possible, hating the touch of his coarse fingers with their over-manicured nails.

Small wonder people stared, small wonder heads turned as they passed! Such beauty as Zara’s must have the same effect wherever she might go. Yet presently Logie began to wonder why it was that when they met with any of those to whom Sherry had introduced her earlier in the day or encountered someone they already knew, their glances would at first be startled, then filled with covert curiosity? And was it her imagination or had one or two bystanders drawn the attention of one another to them furtively as they passed?

Could it be that Zara had acquired an unenviable reputation or that the gossip concerning her was of an unsavoury character? Or was it merely that this was her first appearance here, where she was evidently well known, after a marriage that must undoubtedly have caused considerable comment? It was curious, too, that although many people greeted Zara in passing, none stopped to speak to her, and their smiles were formal. One man, evidently recognising Sherry from afar, started to make his way towards them with a pleased expression, but on seeing Zara looked blank for an instant, then changed his course.

She must ask Sherry all about the Hinterzhagens when she was alone with him again. Meanwhile she listened politely to Solly’s conversation, which consisted chiefly of his reminiscences of racing in South Africa, and steeled herself to being called “little girl” and to the pressure of his shoulder against her as they leaned side by side upon the paddock rail.